Besides his role in Daphne Technology, Mario has held a Research Scientist position at The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, since 2016. He has previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher for the ALPHA Experiment at the Antimatter Factory in CERN, Geneva. He has co-authored 21 manuscripts (5 Nature publications) and patents, including Daphne Technology's patents, which have been granted in multiple countries in three continents.

Before his science career, he served as an officer in the Colombian Navy commanding small surveillance and intercept craft and subsequently worked as a merchant ship deck and engineer officer onboard a variety of commercial ships. He sailed multiple times along the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North, Central and South America, the Mediterranean, and he has crossed the Atlantic (twice in a tall-ship).

He received his PhD in Physics from The University of British Columbia, a Post-graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship from Cambridge Judge Business School, and also an Executive MBA degree in Business Administration and Management from INSEAD.